White House, experts dismiss Iran naval threat to U.S. coast!

“(CNN) -- The White House on Wednesday dismissed an Iranian threat to deploy warships near the U.S. coast, and military experts said Iran lacks the naval capability to do so.

Overnight Tuesday, Iranian state news quoted a commander as saying his country plans to have a “powerful presence” near the U.S. border.

In response, White House spokesman Jay Carney said that “we don’t take these statements seriously, given that they do not reflect at all Iran’s naval capabilities.”

Pentagon spokesman George Little echoed Carney’s point, saying Iran has the right to send vessels into international waters, but “whether they can truly project naval power beyond the region is another question.”

“I wouldn’t read too much into what came out of Iran today,” Little said, adding: “I think what is said and what is actually done can be two different things.”

State-run Press TV in Iran said similar plans were announced in July. However, no Iranian warships ever deployed. In February, two Iranian navy vessels traversed the Suez Canal in the first such voyage by Iranian ships since 1979.

“This is hard to take seriously, because Iran’s navy is very small. This force, whatever it may be, is going to be puny, especially compared to the U.S. Navy,” said Herrmann, who specializes in the use of imagery and posturing in international conflicts. “Iran doesn’t have the capability to come within close proximity to (the United States) to conduct hostile activities. Even if (Iran) launched missiles, we would sink their ships immediately.”

Iran lacks battleships or aircraft carriers. Its forces are capable of patrolling the Persian Gulf and sailing a short distance in the Indian Ocean, Herrmann said, but keeping ships stationed near the United States, so far from Iran, would be too expensive for the government.

“They would need a place to resupply, refuel, restock crews with food and water. They couldn’t afford that unless they got help,” Herrmann said. “I would imagine they could get help from somewhere in South America, maybe Venezuela.”

Venezuela and Iran are allied by their anti-U.S. sentiments.

Michael Connell, the director of the Iranian studies program at CNA, a Washington-area think tank that specializes in naval analyses, agreed with Herrmann.

“It’s posturing” by Iran intended for both its domestic and regional audience, Connell said. Making such pronouncements projects a dominant role including naval power, whether or not they can back it up, he added.

“The Iranians have been historically annoyed that we have a naval presence in the Persian Gulf, which is kind of their backyard,” Connell said.

The worst move the United States could make now would be to overreact, said John Mueller, the Woody Hayes chair of national security studies at Mershon.

“Hopefully this won’t play into (American) neo-cons who are itching for a war with Iran,” he said. “The best thing to do is ignore it and treat it with the contempt it deserves. If Iran wants to waste their time and money on a dwindling supply of fuel (to keep ships) bobbing around in the Atlantic Ocean, then let them.”

The idea of Iran moving ships near the U.S. coast is not on par with the Soviet Union flying planes off the coast of Alaska during the Cold War, Mueller noted. The Soviets’ move was legal, and was considered a gesture intended to irritate the United States, he said.

“Those were different circumstances and different players,” Mueller added.

Herrmann cautioned that while moving ships near the U.S. coast may not be a real threat, Iran is certainly capable of harming the United States—but closer to Iran.

Iran could attack U.S. ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway between the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf, on the south coast of Iran. Such attacks could disrupt oil markets and scare American tourists, Herrmann said.”

“Hugo Chavez, the yanqui-hating dictator of Venezuela, will not accept Washington’s proposed emissary and has dared the United States to break diplomatic relations. It seems Ambassador-select Larry Palmer’s sin is that he did not applaud Chavez when he used his rubber-stamp parliament to perpetuate his dictatorial regime. The State Department’s limp-wristed response was to cancel the visa of the Venezuelan ambassador. That, and silence from the White House, told the megalomaniac in Caracas exactly what the United States will do when Iran finishes building a nuclear missile base in Venezuela — absolutely nothing.

Like Marxist Fidel Castro was in the 1960s, Caudillo Chavez is today’s darling of American liberals and the international left. They are enchanted with his underclass roots, his anti-imperialist posturing, and insults he hurls at the United States in media shows that are crowd-pleasing combinations of Keith Olbermann rants and videos of “The Big Guy from Brooklyn.” More ominously, Chavez has imitated Castro, and like Fidel he has found a big brother to give him the nuclear military clout to dominate Latin America: The Islamic Republic of Iran.

Planning for Iran’s penetration of the Western Hemisphere is well underway. On November 25th, the respected German journal Die Welt published a report that Iran and Venezuela agreed on October 19th to build a joint military base. That complex will include medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) like the Shahab-3 (range 1,200 miles) and Scud-B and Scud-C missiles (range 185-340 miles). Those weapons will enable Chavez to make missile strikes on much of South America, the Caribbean Basin and, with the Shahab-3, even American cities. Longer-range missiles being developed by Iran will threaten all of the United States when they are installed in Venezuela.

The missile base is part of a pattern that began in March 2009, when President Obama met Chavez at an Organization of American States meeting in Trinidad. President Obama shook hands with the dictator, as usual, and said he wanted to be friends and reset US-Venezuelan relations. Chavez responded by presenting Obama with a book that claims the United States plunders Latin America.

Later, in Lisbon in November 2010, NATO agreed to develop missile defenses to protect Europe from the East (meaning Iran). That sensible decision was the backdrop for new plans by Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to destroy the United States — his Great Satan — and for old plans by Chavez to dominate Latin America. The two autocrats would simply build a strategic rocket base in South America, the vulnerable underbelly of America! And then there is that tractor factory.

Iran has already built what it calls a “tractor factory” in Venezuela, the most heavily guarded and secret tractor factory in the world. The fenced compound is so secret that even Venezuelans are not allowed to enter it; only Iranians are allowed inside. (There are reports that Ahmadinejad visited the facility some months ago.) The factory is in a remote area, not far from a uranium deposit former Venezuelan officials estimate holds 50,000 tons of ore. Is it a stretch to connect the secret “tractor factory” and the uranium? It may be just smoke, but so much more is happening in Venezuela that one can only think there is fire, too. A few examples:

In November 2008, Russia and Venezuela agreed on “cooperation in thermonuclear fusion” involving the same Russian company that built the Bushehr reactor in Iran: Atomstroyexport. Russia has kindly extended a $4 billion line of credit to Chavez.

In October 2010, Russia agreed to build two 1,200-megawatt nuclear reactors and a research reactor.

Russia needs a new customer for the SA-300 missiles Iran tried to buy to protect its nuclear program from air attack. Now Venezuela tells Russia that it likes the SA-300. Might those missiles slip into Iran through a Venezuelan back door?

Iran uses Venezuela and other Latin American countries as havens for its terrorists. For months Hezbollah, Iran’s terror army, has metastasized across our undefended border with Mexico to set up sleeper cells in our cities. And now we learn a senior Hezbollah thug was appointed as Venezuela’s Deputy Chief of Mission to Syria?

So now it’s on our borders once again: two dictators who hate America, uranium, secret factories, and rocket bases. What is to be done?

In 1962 President John F. Kennedy blew the dust off the Monroe Doctrine. He saw Soviet and Cuban dictators building missile bases that threatened America, and he sent me and other airmen and sailors to Cuba to end that menace. We did it because President Kennedy’s resolve to protect the United States was firm and clear. The foreign menace was driven away.

My service in Cuba in 1962 gives me the standing to ask Mr. Obama a simple question: Why do you allow Iranian missiles to threaten our homeland?”

Chet Nagle is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and the author ofIRAN COVENANT.

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Ten Commandments of Human Relations

The fundamental issue in human ethical behavior is summarized by Jesus in what we have come to call "The Golden Rule." Jesus put it this way:

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 7:12 TNIV).

It asks us to test our treatment of others by putting ourselves in their place. Treat others the way you would want them to treat you in the same or similar circumstance.

Somebody took that principle and translated it into Ten Commandments of Human Relations. You may have seen this anonymous piece, for it circulates in a variety of settings. In case you have missed it, I am reproducing it here.

Speak to people. There is nothing as nice as a cheerful word of greeting.

Smile at people. It takes 72 muscles to frown, only 14 to smile.

Call people by name. It is music to anyone’s ears to hear the sound of his or her name.

Be friendly and helpful.

Be cordial. Speak and act as if everything you do is genuinely a pleasure. If it isn’t, learn to make it so.

Be genuinely interested in people. You can like almost anyone, if you try.

Be generous with praise, cautious with criticism.

Be considerate of the feelings of others. There are usually three sides to a controversy — yours, the other fellow’s, and the correct one.

Be alert to serve. What counts most in life is what you do for others.

Live with a good sense of humor, a generous dose of patience, and a dash of humility appropriate to being human.

Made in God’s image, all of us have something to be valued!

The great challenge in human experience is not work skills, but people skills. That is, research has shown that the majority of people who fail in their vocation do so because they cannot get along with people.

You might think through the meaning of these ten common-sense ideas for your own workplace and personal activity. But what about the larger setting for your daily life? These principles work everywhere you go, for they are about showing respect to the people you meet in all those places.

Made in God’s image, all of us have something to be valued, affirmed, and acknowledged by others. But let it begin with us to acknowledge it in them. As the cycle of giving and receiving enlarges, the human community comes alive.